This photo sucks because of me, not the camera :)

If you can’t tell from the crappy photo above, I have a fancy new DSLR camera! I’ve had a sort of vague interest in photography for a while now, especially with quite a number of my friends being very into it and producing some amazing work. I still love my little point-and-shoot that my friends gave me for my 21st birthday, but sometimes it’s nice to sacrifice convenience for extra creative control.

On the recommendations of well… everyone based on my budget and general photography noobishness, I ended up getting a Canon 400D in a twin lens kit. With all the associated bits and pieces it ended up more spendy than I had originally thought, but I did manage to wrangle the price down a little and get a free bag, as well as getting it all duty free since I’m going to Japan soon. Interestingly the duty free store seemed to have similar or lower prices than all the camera shops that I went to even if you aren’t buying it duty free, so it worked out quite well for me.

I still don’t really know how to use it - the last time I used an SLR was when I was 14 with our highschool’s (film) cameras, and even then I don’t remember setting many manual options. I’ve been reading up enough to get a general idea but it feels like something that requires a bit of messing around with to really get the hang of. I’ve just been messing around with settings and taking photos of things around my house (most of which turned out terribly with my experimenting) and hopefully I’ll be able to talk one of my more experienced photographer friends to take me out somewhere and show me how it all works.

If anyone has any tips or reading material for me please let me know!